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Oct. 7, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:38
October 7, 2010, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yeah, hang on, my chair is in a rut here.
Every day, the chair finds a hole in this plastic rudder down there, and I get in a rut, and I can't get close enough to the desk.
It causes a delay in the start of the program every day.
Well, yes, I want another one, but not right now.
I got too many things to do.
Custom-made runner, give me a break.
Anyways, greetings, folks.
Great to have you here.
Rush Limbaugh.
A custom-made run.
Well, see, the problem is I'm not stuck in a rut, but my chair is.
And it's a distraction.
Anyway, great to have you here.
You know who I am.
You know what this is.
You know what we do.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.
Michelle Mybelle Obama is the number one most powerful woman in the world.
Now we know why Mrs. Clinton floated a rumor that she might replace Bite Me on the ticket as Veep.
Can you imagine you're Mrs. Clinton?
Here comes that and Muchel Obama, the number one most powerful woman in the world?
And what has she done?
She had a no-show job in a hospital Chicago.
She's growing vegetables in a garden.
She's running around taking cool vacations.
And she's the most, she hadn't even joined the campaign trail yet.
That's got to steam Hillary.
I mean, Angela Merkel's number four, the female head of Kraft Foods.
Everybody knows who she is.
Is number three, I think.
Oprah, the Oprah number two.
Really strange.
Yeah, Lady Gaga is on this list.
What number is late?
Lady Gaga is number seven.
Meanwhile, there's a woman out there who can cause a tsunami with a simple little Facebook post, Sarah Palin, who barely shows up in the most powerful woman in the, what is it, in the world survey.
Let's hope it's true.
At least if last week's article in the National Inquirer is true, which claimed that, did you see this in the National Inquirer last week?
Last week, National Inquirer had a story out there that Michelle would divorce Imam Obama if he ran for a second term.
That she's had it, that she doesn't like the prison of the White House.
She doesn't like being cloistered there, clustered.
She just doesn't like it.
And the Inquirer has broken a lot of news.
They broke the John Edwards story, and nobody wanted to pay any attention to it.
I mean, their headline, Michelle tells Ben I've had enough.
It was in the celebrity news section.
At any rate, I have to talk about this McDonald's business and the waiver on health, not coverage, on the health law.
From Bloomberg Business News, nearly a million workers won't get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance costs because the government exempted their employers.
Won't get a consumer protection.
If they didn't get this waiver, they would have lost their insurance.
What the heck here?
Nearly a million workers won't get a consumer protection in the U.S. health reform law meant to cap insurance costs because the government exempted their employers.
Consumer protection, they're asking for a waiver from the health wall.
That alone, what does that tell you?
We've got a new health care law.
Forget the headline in the Bloomberg story calls healthcare coverage.
Forget that.
We have a health care law.
It has been touted by its proponents as the greatest thing ever for the people of this country.
Remember, Pelosi was very happy after it was signed at her press conference there.
Affordable health care for all Americans.
And they were rolling on and on and on about what a great thing this was.
Premiums are going to be reduced $2,500.
Access to coverage, greater than ever.
Access to care, better than ever.
You have to keep your doctor.
And yet, here are 30 companies who, in order essentially, to provide their employees health care, need a waiver from the new law.
What does that tell us?
The big political issue: this is a pull quote here, chief executive officer of the consulting company Health Policy and Strategy Associates.
The big political issue here is the president promised no one would lose the coverage that they've got.
So here we are a month before the election, and these companies represent 1 million people who would lose the coverage they've got.
You get to keep your doctor, you don't lose your coverage.
30 companies need a waiver from the law.
For those of you in Rio Linda, what this means is the law will not apply to them.
It will be as though the law doesn't exist for them.
The waiver is only for one year, an election year.
30 companies and organizations, including McDonald's and Jack in the Bucks, won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees.
They won't be required.
Welcome to Obamaville.
They won't be required for only one year.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided a list of exemptions, said it granted waivers in late September so that workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage, wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead to drop health insurance altogether.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, we're getting to the problem.
This decision was driven by the November elections.
This has diffused one of many Election Day bombshell issues.
So here you have the new health care reform law, which is the best thing since sliced bread.
It's going to fix what was an unjust and unfair and totally rip-off health care system.
And now, 30 companies need to be exempted from it in order to provide health insurance for their employees.
Low-wage employees, the primary beneficiaries, we were told, people who were poor, people who couldn't afford it on their own, they were the primary beneficiaries.
The law was really focused, as all supposed Democrat policies are, on the little guy.
And the little guy, in order to have his continued health insurance, has to be exempted.
His company has to be exempted from the law.
But then after this year, next year, he'll lose it because there's not an election next year.
I also have a story with a chart here.
This is from Gallup.
Unemployment numbers.
And I want you to imagine this chart starts in January 2010, goes through calendar year, and it's a chart up and down green line of unemployment.
And the number is tacking up.
Beginning in the middle of July to the present, we're going up.
There's no downward trend.
There's no straight line.
We are going up.
This close to an election, a month out, partisan operatives in state-controlled media would be on fire from now until Election Day with this information if there were a Republican in the White House.
It would not be ignored as it is being ignored by our brethren and sister in the partisan-controlled media.
It would lead the news if Republicans could be blamed for it.
This would be the blockbuster story of the month.
Gallup's U.S. unemployment rate, 30-day averages, not seasonally adjusted.
They have us now at 10.1%.
Not seasonally adjusted.
10.1%.
So it's an election year.
Oh, jobless claims near three-month low.
Reuters.
New claims for unemployment benefits fell to a near three-month low last week, pointing to some improvement in the troubled labor market.
Yet, if you look here at the Gallup chart, there is no trend downward.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 445,000.
So what this means is almost one-half a million people still can't find jobs.
And we're still losing them.
Where's the bottom here?
How is it possible?
How many more jobs are there to be laid off from out there?
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast jobless claims edging up to 455,000 from the previously reported 453.
The government revised the prior week's figure to 456.
The way this works is so that they can show good news every week, they lie.
And after everybody forgets the news, then they revise it downward or worse in the next week so that the numbers continue to look not quite as bad as they really are.
Now, what Gallup does different, you might be saying, well, Russia, unemployment rate to 9.5, 9.6%.
You say Gallup shows it 10.1.
Yes.
You heard correctly.
What Gallup does differently in their report to get 10% is they add unemployed part-time workers.
They add unemployed part-time workers.
And even the 10% figure is low.
And if you look at the U6, which continues to count people who've given up looking, we're at 17%.
No change.
There's nothing happening in the private sector that is going to lead to any kind of a change in unemployment.
And I'm telling you, less than a month away, that's all we'd be hearing about if Obama was a Republican.
That's all we'd be hearing.
Wouldn't have stopped hearing about it for the last year and a half.
Instead, we've got these sycophant stories out here.
It's showing a slight improvement out there, showing we may have bottomed down.
Oh, goody, goody, goody.
Obama's policies might actually be working.
This is what the attempt is.
And now, 30 American firms, in order to provide health insurance and thus coverage, care for their employees, need a waiver.
They need to be not held accountable to the law.
They need, in effect, a pardon.
These 30 companies need a pardon.
They need to be allowed to break the law.
This is how we must look at this.
They're getting a one-year pardon.
They break the law with permission from the government in order to provide health insurance and care for their employees, which were not going to lose their doctors, not going to lose their coverage, and their premiums are going to go down.
I can't emphasize this enough.
Come up with this brand new law that's supposed to fix everything that's wrong, and 30 companies, because it's an election year, are allowed to break the law, get a pardon, otherwise, disaster would happen.
Holy, I mean, I don't know what.
Hi, we're back.
Rushlin Boy, as always, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
One more thing on this waiver story.
The single biggest waiver, 351,000 people, was for the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, a New York union providing coverage for city teachers.
The waivers are effective for a year and were granted to insurance plans and companies that showed that employee premiums would rise or that workers would lose coverage without them.
I mean, there it is.
So, in order for people to continue to have health care insurance and health care, you have to be exempted from Obamacare.
And the single biggest waiver, 351,000 people for the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, a New York union providing coverage for city teachers.
That's a lot of votes in a state that could see key Democrats thumped in November.
And look, the honesty with which Reuters reports this, make sure it's Reuters here.
The honesty that they, Bloomberg, sorry, the honesty with which Bloomberg reports this.
The waivers are effective for a year and were granted to insurance plans and companies that showed that employee premiums would rise or that workers would lose coverage without the waivers.
Cannot emphasize this enough as to what this means.
Ladies and gentlemen, I had a conversation this morning with a ranking Republican figure.
I'm not going to mention any names.
The ranking Republican figure assured me that, well, it didn't assure me, that's the wrong word.
The ranking Republican figure opined that if there are huge electoral victories in the House and the Senate for Republicans in November, that Obama will do a Clinton and triangulate and moderate and become less liberal.
Now, I listened to this patiently and with an open mind.
And then I expressed my sincere disagreement with this.
I said, I don't think that's going to happen.
I think we're dealing with somebody who's gleeful.
He has accomplished a lot.
He's extremely happy at what he's been able to pull off in 20 months.
And the next two years, he's going to do as much destruction, damage as he can while blaming Republicans for it all the way.
And a ranking Republican said to me, do you believe even if it means he won't be elected in 2012?
I said, absolutely.
Who's going to vote for him in 2012?
I mean, his party already going to hate his guts.
His base, they're not happy with him because he hasn't closed Guantanamo.
He hadn't gotten out of Iraq or Afghanistan.
We don't have single-payer health care.
I mean, his fringe based not happy.
Democrats that are going to lose their seats in the House and Senate, they're not going to be happy.
I mean, I think he's looking at the next two years as a single greatest opportunity the left has had to totally redestruct, well, destruct and reform the country in their image.
The LA Times has a story.
Today, Obama reshapes administration for a freshy.
White House staff changes are being made with an eye toward achieving goals through executive actions rather than by trying to push plans through the next Congress, which is expected to be even more hostile to the president.
More executive orders, more regulations via czars and cabinet members.
This is how they will do climate changes and card check.
They're going to try to do as much of it.
Think executive order to understand this.
But apparently there are a lot of Republicans who think that's not going to happen.
That Obama is going to be humbled by this major shellacking and will have to moderate, much as Clinton did, if he wants to be reelected in 2012.
This is the, from what I gather, the thinking is that Obama will want to be reelected in 2012.
And in the playbook, the only way for Obama now to get re-elected in 2012 is to drop this hardcore liberalism and join the Republicans in the middle to get things done.
I just don't see that happening at all.
Hey, look, Obama said just today there's going to be gridlock if the GOP wins.
And he's out there trying to rev up his base.
He's trying to get his base to show up.
He's trying to create enthusiasm.
So when he says and he warns the Democrats, they're going to be gridlocked when he's telling them, look, I won't be able to get anything done.
If the Republicans win, I won't be able to get anything.
He's trying to scare people.
And he's showing up and voting for him.
The translation is, I'm not changing anything.
I'm not moderating.
I mean, it wouldn't be any gridlock if he's going to change and start agreeing with the Republicans.
And again, every interview that Obama I've said or read that I've seen, Obama says he is proud as he can be of what he's done to our country.
He's happy.
He carries around in his pocket this little list, this is a little to-do list.
And he knows full well that 60 to 70 percent of the American people oppose every bit of legislation and the executive orders that he's rammed through.
He's not blind.
He doesn't have blinders on.
He knows.
He knows the Democrats know they're governing against the will of the people.
They're fully aware of it.
And they do it purposefully.
I mean, I'm sure that Obama realizes a certain percentage of this country is ready to rebel.
That's, I'm sure, part of why he feels happy.
Mission accomplished.
Success is mine.
Obama's only complaint is he wants more credit for what's going on.
He thinks he's revolutionary himself.
He thinks he is the one we've all been waiting for.
He is convinced that we don't know what's good for us.
All leftists are that way.
They all have that arrogance and contempt.
And the more we oppose and the more loudly we oppose, the more their resolve intensifies.
I mean, did Obama moderate when Scott Brown won the Kennedy seat, the so-called Kennedy seat?
I don't think he did.
I don't think.
How about all the other primaries that GOP won?
Did he compromise Chris Christie wins in New Jersey and McConnell McDonnell wins in Virginia and Scott Brown?
Did we see Obama say, you know what?
I'm out of touch here.
The people are sending me a message.
I better moderate.
Did we see that?
We didn't.
We saw the resolve stiffen, if you will.
We saw appointments of more anti-capitalist people to his administration in the guise of consumer protectionists.
I'm sure he feels a little sad.
He ought to get rid of Van Jones.
He'll find a place for him.
Right here it is.
Los Angeles Times, White House staff changes are being made with an eye toward achieving goals through executive actions rather than trying to push plans through the next Congress, which is expected to be even more hostile to the president.
White House senior advisor David Axelrod said, it's fair to say that the next phase is going to be less about legislative action than it is about managing the change that we have brought.
Winning passage of legislation wasn't easy for Obama, even with Democrats in firm control of both houses of Congress.
Conditions will get tougher if Republicans pick up seats and possibly take control of Congress.
Whether or not the Republicans take over majorities in one or both houses, the margins will be so much narrower that the strategery of putting together a Democrat bill and picking off a handful of Republicans to push it over the top won't be viable anymore, said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.
So the best arena for Obama to execute his plans may be his own branch of government.
That means more executive orders, more use of the bully pulpit, and more deployment of his ample regulatory powers and the wide-ranging rulemaking authority of his cabinet members.
And you're seeing it in this healthcare business as the Secretary may decide or determine.
So the snap of his fingers, 30 companies can be exempted, can be pardoned for one year from the health care bill.
But just as easily, they couldn't have been.
Just as easily, if it wasn't an election year, just as easily, all of those employees would have lost their coverage, which is the intention.
It's just not supposed to happen now.
It is the intention that those people at McDonald's and the teachers' fund lose their coverage.
That's the idea.
Mr. Limbaugh, if the purpose is for them to lose their coverage, then where are they going to go get it?
To Obama.
Federal government, single-payer, exchanges, whatever you want to call it, whatever they're calling it.
This stuff was not supposed to be implemented as fast.
We're not supposed to be seeing the flaws, quote unquote, in this bill.
So if they get a hostile Congress, one that they can't win legislation, this guy's not going to be stopped by that.
And he's not in the, he's not even interested in adopting or compromising with Republicans on their agenda.
Promising gridlock is evidence of this.
So I'm just telling you this because obviously there's some thinking in the Republican Party that still looks at this as traditional Republican versus Democrat.
Elections cause temporary shifts in power, but that there is a template and that everybody wants to get re-elected.
And the way you get re-elected is to moderate.
If you're conservative or liberal, you moderate and go to the center.
That's how you get re-elected.
Try to find a way to hold on to your base.
But that whole theory is thrown into chaos if you're up against somebody who doesn't care about being reelected or who thinks the best way to get re-elected is to complete his agenda.
Or if somebody doesn't care about being re-elected and would rather be left than president as opposed to being right.
I don't think that we have had an occupant of the White House quite like this with these intentions.
But it's crystal clear who Obama is by the way he's been educated and who his friends are, mentors, as we have discussed.
So I think it's going to be interesting to see.
Victor Davis Hansen is out with his own version of my theory that Obama's going to blame Republicans for everything that happened.
Victor Davis Hansen's theory is that Obama is going to have to realize that there must be tax cuts and that there must be spending cuts and that there must be some fiscal responsibility.
And he's going to willingly let the Republicans do all that while blaming them for being heartless and cold and having no compassion.
He's going to run around.
He's going to say while all this is being done that he knows has to be done.
He'll let the Republicans propose it.
He's going to sign some of it and then blame the Republicans for holding him hostage.
While he's trying to help the little guy and help people, it's Republicans who want to cut their social security.
It's Republicans who want to keep giving tax cuts to the rich.
Now, you've heard my theory on that, that that's what Obama's going to do.
Victor Davis Hansen believes he's going to sit idly by and let the Republicans have their legislative victories because everybody realizes now they have to happen.
We have to do these fixes.
In other words, we have to fix Obamaism.
And I'm not convinced that Obama thinks there's anything to fix.
For Obama to sit aside and agree, okay, yeah, whatever this needs fixing, that means Obama's got to tell himself that he's made huge mistakes.
And he just doesn't do that.
Obama doesn't make mistakes.
Narcissists are not capable in their own minds of making mistakes.
So everybody has their different theories about what's going to happen if the Republicans do take control of one or both houses of Congress.
And I find it interesting that there's a lot of conventional wisdom that says Obama is going to, in effect, either moderate, as my ranking Republican said, or allow the Republicans their victories because he knows in his heart to save the country, he has to, while blaming them at the same time.
But both theories involve Obama triangulating, abandoning his base, moving to the center.
I just don't see it.
And we'll know.
You know, folks, we will know.
We'll see what they intend to do with this lame duck session.
I have no doubt in Obama's mind, he was elected to roll back the Reagan Revolution entirely.
And it's obvious that the people in Washington do not agree with this.
I don't know that they don't see it, but I do know that some of them don't agree that that's what his intentions are.
He got elected to roll back the Reagan Revolution.
He didn't like it.
He's got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here.
And all of his merry band of Marxists, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here to finally make this country pay, to finally structure this country so that it's fair for everybody.
Whatever perverted view they have.
And in that light, I just don't see Obama saying to himself, you know what?
I've been wrong.
I'm going to have to move to the middle here if I want to get re-elected in 2012.
I've done what I thought people wanted, but they don't want it.
This is a mistake.
He doesn't think this way.
He doesn't behave this way.
We'll find out in this lame duck.
I've seen stories that Democrats are going to come back and try to ramrod 10, 15 of their really big-time issues down everybody's throat.
They're not going to have a lot of time in this midterm to get a lot of things done legislatively.
But we'll see, we'll get an indication of what they intend to do, what Obama intends to do, based on how hard they try in the lame duck.
Quick time out here, folks.
Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence and Broadcasting Network, back with more.
Get to some of your phone calls.
And I want to go back and review my hurricane prediction.
Because now all the CYA is going on out there.
All the CYA.
Now we're getting, you know, this really was a bad hurricane.
Don't think it wasn't a bad hurricane.
We were right.
We were right when we told you how many names storms are going to be.
We were right when we told you how severe they were going to be.
It's just not happening to hit the United States.
But we were right about everything else.
The CYA from all these predictors and forecasters is happening out there.
And I want to replay my prediction when we come back.
We got a lot of fun stuff still ahead, so don't go away.
Look at, folks, Obama He is so purposely deaf to the American people.
He thinks the Democrats are behind in all the polls due to apathy.
He thinks, or he's telling himself, the reason the Democrat's going to lose is that party voters are in apathy.
That's why he's out there trying to rev them up.
It's not his policies.
Even Michael Barone has a piece today about why the Democrats are going to lose.
And even he says it's apathetic.
It's not that.
It's policies.
Look, I got to start.
One in four Democrats don't like health care.
One in four Democrats don't like the health care bill.
There are some, they call them Reagan Democrats.
There are some Democrats out there who are just like us, scared to death over what is happening to the country.
They're not apathetic.
There isn't a whole lot of, they're either depressed or they're revved up, but there isn't any apathy out there.
Now, this thinking that Obama's going to move to the middle, this is classic inside the beltway thinking lady.
It's right, right, right out of the template.
And there are only two templates.
And they still haven't gotten that we are dealing with a whole different situation.
Remember, when I said, I hope he fails, they ran for the tallgrass.
They didn't condemn me, but they didn't want to be associated with me.
We had people on our side.
You know what?
He's a moderate guy.
I've listened to him talk.
I've had dinner with him, very moderate guy.
He's going to come here.
He's going to work with us.
Even Mr. Newt, when he appointed James Jones as some security guy, Newt's on television saying, if you'd have told me that this radical leftist, supposedly a radical leftist, going to paw Jim Jones.
I'm just rolling my eyes and shaking my head here.
So I have been ahead of the curve.
We all have, but we have been at the head of the curve on who this guy is from the get-go, and we still are.
Now the inside-the-beltway thinking is got to move to the center, has to moderate.
That's how you get re-elected.
Obama's not an inside-the-beltway guy.
He's a Chicago guy.
He's not an we remember all the conservative columnists who had dinner with Obama at George Will's house.
They came out of there.
You know what?
This guy's brilliant.
I like the crease in his slacks.
David Brooks, I like the crease in his slacks.
This guy is very smart, very, very brilliant, like us.
And he's very moderate.
This guy's not the leftist ideologue.
Obama tells the Republicans, don't listen to Limbaugh.
That's not how things get done in Washington.
So they believe that Obama's going to essentially do what Clinton did in 96.
See, there's some interesting history.
In the modern presidential era, every midterm where the president loses seats, he's been re-elected.
Truman, Ike Clinton.
94, the Shelley Clinton re-elected.
This is what they think inside the Beltway, because what happens in the past is that these presidents that lose seats get scared and start moderating to get back the voters they lost in the midterms.
And this is where Obama doesn't fit the template.
This is where you can't plug him into the narrative.
Has there ever been a president about whom you could honestly say, like we can with Obama, look at what he has destroyed in a year and a half?
We've never characterized a president that way.
We've said, look what they want to destroy healthcare Clinton.
Look what they wanted.
We've never had a president about whom I told a ranking Republican if we had pulled off in a year and a half the same thing that we like, same stuff that we want to do that this guy's pulled off in a year and a half, we would be ecstatically happy just as he is.
Here's my Do I have turned a hurricane?
Damn.
Yes, here's my hurricane.
Nope, I'm not going to play it.
I need to set it up.
So my diarrhea of the mouth, which was worth it, has made me push the hurricane prediction back to the next hour.
So I got an email from a guy.
It says, Rush, Obama does not know that 60, 70% of the people disagree with him.
He doesn't know that.
He doesn't realize that.
He reads the New York Times.
That's all he reads.
And in the New York Times, he's perfect.
Don't believe that.
He can see election returns.
He can see Republican winning Scott Browns.
He can see Republicans winning governorship.
He knows.
The thing you have to understand is he's smiling as he knows.
He is smiling.
You're upset.
He knows you're going to be upset.
Look at if he thought you supported all this, he would have campaigned on it.
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